Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Funny Articles

Lots of times you'll see people who don't understand the Navy at all decide to write about naval matters, and hilarity frequently ensues. After being wrong in 2006 and 2007, Dave Lindorff is once again predicting a U.S. attack on Iran -- but this time, it'll come from "aircraft carriers packed with tomahawk cruise missiles"! Maybe next he'll do an investigative piece where he'll learn that aircraft carriers don't carry Tomahawks.

The same people at WorldNetDaily who brought us the "Israeli submarines off Iran" story are now reporting that a Chinese freighter trying to deliver arms to Zimbabwe is being shadowed by a "British Trident submarine"... this despite the fact that Trident is the name of their missile program, and the submarines that carry them are Vanguard-class subs, and that it's really not very likely that the Brits would have a boomer doing shadowing ops off the African coast.

A much better, but still amusing, article comes from a recent media availability inflicted on USS Pittsburgh (SSN 720) in conjunction with Fleet Week in PEV. This article is actually pretty good as far as accuracy goes, and has a good slideshow that's worth a look, but I think that because the writer is a woman, she felt the need to get into the emotional side of submarining:

But as much as the men boast about the fulfillment of being submariners, their jobs can be intricate, lonely and introspective, and above all else, quiet; evident by the signs posted along the hallways: "Practice Sound Silencing, Shut Door Quietly." Every movement or conversation can disturb a crew mate in the tight spaces.When he's not inside the dark sonar room overseeing four seamen, Sonar Technician 1st class Harris Behrman spends his time reading messages from his wife. She writes about three to four messages each day, mostly updating him about their kids."That's the hardest part, not being with my family," Behrman said. "The first thing I do when I get off board is call my wife."Fritz, the chief chef, shares a similar longing for his family. In the crew's mess Sunday night, before starting a late night game of poker, the 30-year-old popped opened his laptop in search of pictures of his three children. Hundreds popped up."I don't look at them often," he admitted. "I get too nostalgic."

Are these guys catching crap from their buddies right now or what? And why is it that women seem to feel the need to believe that guys actually have complex "feelings"? Dave Barry says it best -- if you see a guy is sitting in his chair, looking pensive, it's not because he's thinking about his relationships; he's most likely trying to remember some obscure sports factoid.

If WestPac was any indication, the amount of famliy-missing is directly proportional to the chance said family will be waiting on the pier when you pull in. Heading to Guam or Japan, they missed their families. PI or Thailand, not so much.

In fact, I think many of the women overseas considered a wedding ring to be a plus - you're already housebroken and are less likely to have a disease. Of course, you have a lot less money than the single guys, but that didn't seem to slow anyone down on my boat.

Wait a sec. So the author thinks the signs telling everyone to maintain silence are so you don't "disturb" a shipmate in the "tight spaces"? Well, I guess a torpedo in the side would ruin your rack time.

No reporter should ever be let aboard a modern SSN without first touring a WWII diesel boat. I made it a point to do that with friends and family when they visited in New London, and they always walked away 'amazed' at how much space today's submarines have one them.

Obviously "roomy" on a fast boat is definitely a matter of perspective. Upon first arriving at my boat, I thought, "How can anyone live and work in something this small?" After a few months, other than the occasional cursing of some designer who never thought about body contortions required to do maintenance in the ER, I usually thought that I had plenty of room. Now, having some years between me and The Nav, I see pictures and think, "How can anyone live and work in something that small?"

Yeah, they say that people are the most important resource on a sub, but actions speak louder than words: Whenever the cones got some new electronic doodad, they always took away one of our hanging gear lockers to install it.

(CBS) A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran's still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran's uranium enrichment plant show the country's defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.

No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can't strike.

I read a book about a year ago that had probably about the most outlandish submarine "fact" I'd ever seen. It was a description of the VA class's ability to deploy seals in an independent submersible vehicle... launched from the torpedo tubes. Complete with pictures! It was basically two dudes on top of each other looking like they were imagining each other to be their wives.

I think he was trying to describe ASDS but was horridly confused as to what it actually was.

About Me

I'm Joel Kennedy -- a married, 50-something year old retired submarine officer and esophageal cancer survivor with three kids who has finally made the transition to civilian life. Politically, I'm a Radical Moderate. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me. Don't call me at home.)